Shake it Off

Life over the past few months has been like being run over.  Usually gently.  But repeatedly. 

Only when it almost physically happened did I really protest. 

That’s right – the inevitable almost happened last week:  I thought I could make it across the street before a moto got me.

I was wrong. 

My friends have told me to check myself before I wreck myself, but survival of jaywalking in Canada, India, and Mali has given me a cocky self-assurance that I can dart across the road whenever I darn well feel like it. 

God protected me. 

Yeah, yeah, I know.  I don’t usually say that kind of stuff.  Because if I didn’t believe it, I’d roll my eyes.  But the driver was full-on heading for my left side – I saw him.  I couldn’t move forward because there was another car coming from the opposite direction.  I turned away – whether to pretend it wasn’t happening or to protect my beautiful face (stop laughing), I’m not sure.    

Then I felt a light bump on my left ankle and then I crossed the street. 

I guess he must have swerved and not hit anyone else.  I guess I must have been quick, despite the self-awareness that I usually choose a course of action and follow it to the end.  Despite the fact that I'm rarely able to change plans in a split second.  Despite remembering the sweat on my skin, the prickling sense that I was trapped in amber.  

I glanced back; the moto passenger was clutching his head in his hands and grimacing, people were watching me.  I kept walking.  The other option was to wobble to a halt and keel over. 

That morning at devotions, we sang Jesu, je viens, je viens a toi...  Tel que je suis – je viens a toi…

It was all too horribly close for comfort. 

I resolved to be more positive and joyful about my existence, aided by the fact that my black friend who was tired of being surrounded by black people never came back after seeing Butters, and the military guys are now eerily silent.  ...Yeah, that resolution only lasted until Grandma and Grandpa came over to discuss our impending move and water situation. 

[Note:  We still report to Carrottop and Captain, but they now report to Grandma and Grandpa.  Their names have nothing whatsoever to do with their age or appearance; I just tend to think of Carrottop and Captain as our parents, so...  This was solidified when Butters announced, “You know Dad and Grandma and Grandpa are coming over tonight, right?”]

When the top floor is completed, we will be moving with the expertise and determination of Grandpa, who ensured water for his home in the bush in Kenya for years – I have faith.  However, the drawn-out discussions of where to place a ground-floor tank, how to use the rainwater tank on the 3^rd floor, how to keep the attached pump from being stolen... 

It all seems like a lot of work to me, when we could just stay on the 1^st floor, but that’s none of my business. 

Because then we wouldn’t be able to stand in sweaty clothes by our dirty windows, lick our parched lips, and gaze upon the rolling hills and terraced roofs of our beautiful city in the dusty clutches of the dry season...

My mindset was aggravated by the fact that we discussed this whole situation in our landlord’s beautiful home (the ground floor of our building) while his daughter tuned into Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on TV.  I almost sat on her to get the remote, but restrained myself admirably – especially as she’d greeted me in English that morning and eyes me with the faint, rosy tint of hero worship.  Our welcome had gotten off to a slighly rocky start anyway when she said to her father in a very audible whisper, “Maman’s  not coming out – she says she’s sick.”

But we forged on,  Captain and Grandpa (who speaks Swahili like it’s ‘Murrican – with the same fluidity and drawl) working out how to use our apparently spectacular piping system (sorry, reflexive sarcasm), and Grandma staying out of it because she is deeply wise (as evidenced by her fondness for peanut butter). 

Meanwhile, I was divided between trying to understand the Swahili (I was close) and focusing on  Tom Felton’s beautiful blond face and reliving my priveleged childhood of libraries and movie theatres and tapwater  Aragog.  I mean, yes – I believe they were trying to work for our benefit, especially to avoid traumatising our new roommate with my demented screaming in case the water didn’t arrive one day, but... and I’m trying to say this carefully – from my experience of the Congo thus far, things rarely pan out like you imagine.  Particularly if you happen to be a bouncy optimist.  I tried to ask gentle questions about certainty, timelines, and actual water arriving to the tap, but was mainly vetoed by expertise, which I will happily submit to. 

If it works.

If not, our organization's chapter in Central Africa will be marked by intense, passive-aggressive martyrdom until 2018.

I’m thinking of writing up a User Agreement and getting my mom to share her testimony of surviving nearly 20 years of But you saiiiiid... 

Maman also came out towards the end of the discussion, despite her earlier missive, and we ended the powwow with sparkling Sprite served to us in wineglasses by my budding Potterhead.  However, my favourite part of the night was when Grandma and Grandpa said we were were using a horrible water filtration system, and that they were getting us a freakishly expensive one from Europe – yes, after 8 months.  My cheap little heart is breaking over this expense as I honestly haven’t had any stomach issues outside of the first month here, and I assume Butters has been doing okay as well (aside from, uh, the gurgling vomit a few days ago).  But the point is that the ceramic candle system is, to put it gently, next to worthless.  I later found out that both the pharmacologist (Pastor) and the pharmacist boil the water before pouring it into the filter.   

Boom. 

I win. 

I win so hard I feel like Donald Trump holding his own as a presidential candidate despite being Donald Trump.

...Sorry.  Sorry.  I just came out of a blissfully solitary weekend listening to music, watching Jessica Jones, and seeing my crush with his cute girlfriend; I’m rested and refreshed, but cynicism is reaching mutagenic levels.  

At this point I think we should all be thankful that new information results in a smirk rather than clinical depression.